


Like Ships that Pass in the Night

by JustJasper



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Costumes, Disguise, Established Relationship, Fake Flirt, M/M, Post-Trespasser, Strangers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-03
Updated: 2017-05-03
Packaged: 2018-10-27 03:40:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10800948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JustJasper/pseuds/JustJasper
Summary: Two strangers meet at a tavern on the Orlesian border.





	Like Ships that Pass in the Night

**“I looked at him like a stranger, someone I’d never seen before, and he looked at me like I’d been lost to him for a thousand years and finally found.” - Emme Rollins**

There's a small tavern on the Orlesian border, that serves as a good stopping point for people headed out into the countryside. The sign's crooked and the gold gilding’s seen better days, but it's a busy stop. Busy enough that there's other qunari around, and busy enough that he only gets the usual side-eye. Sort of like being back in Skyhold, in the Herald's Rest, the cosiness of the place. It's kinda nice.

Plus there's a handsome redhead at the bar, and the Bull's eye has lingered over that form for more than a couple of minutes, and he's still not _sure_. Some kind of merc from the worn leathers and the sword at his belt. It's notched, and recently cleaned – battle worn, but well cared for. Same could be said of the guy, the Bull thinks. The Bull is used to watching people and figuring them out, and it's nice when the subject is something to look at. He needs a closer look to really know what he's dealing with for sure.

He's not the only one looking. The man's handsome, getting some attention from a barmaid and a few men and women further afield. The Bull catalogues these things, and the eyes that are on him too. Not quite for the usual reasons people look at him, though he still cuts a figure even in a room with a number of vashoth in it. Good, that's good. Eyes on them works.

He gathers his books and papers and takes up a seat the other end of the bar from the redhead, and orders a glass of Jader red. The bartender looks sideways at him, sizing him up, but makes no complaint serving him.

He swills his wine and sips it, thinks about the fruity notes and makes appreciative sounds that make the bartender relax by inches. Sure, he's an outsider born, but he's fitting in well enough. The redhead's accent is heavy, Free Marcher. Hot.

 _If you fuck someone else,_ Dorian had said, _make it an event that will be exciting in the retelling._

He's tanned, with a red beard and dark freckles scattered across his face, golden eyes. The Bull always liked a redhead. He flags down the bartender again and orders a beer.

“I would not,” the bartender tells him.

“Hm?”

He nods his head minutely at the redhead.

“He's spurned all advanced tonight. I would not trouble him.”

“I take your warning,” the Bull says, as he takes the beer in exchange for coin.

“But you'll not heed it. Be it on your head, ser.”

Balancing the beer with his papers, he moves into the space next to the redheaded stranger the serving girl has just left and sets the beer down on the wooden bartop.

He'd have been sure once he got a close look at the guy's face anyway – that nose, the faint hint of piercings, the way the callouses form on his hands. But it's the recognition in the man's eyes as soon as they meet that sparks his own. Somewhere under all that disguise – is it makeup? Magic? – is Dorian. He knows it as surely as the tide comes in.

The Bull pushes the beer across the bar towards him, and in his best Orlesian accent:

“I hope you do not mind. I do not know what a man like you would drink.”

The redhead narrows his eyes at him – it's exasperation, but it passes well enough for suspicion.

“Hey, I like beer.”

Sounds pretty convincing when he says it too.

*

The Bull is unmistakeable, whatever the disguise. There is simply nobody quite as large or as uniquely shaped as he is, but Dorian certainly appreciates the efforts he's gone to.

“What brings you to these parts?” the Orlesian vashoth asks him – the accent is terrible, but that's true of Orlesians who aren't faking it, too.

His face is smooth and unlined somehow, clean shaven, the eyepatch simple black leather. The whole effect is a little uncanny, for Dorian is so used to the character of the face before him, but it's impressive.

“A hunt,” Dorian says. He adjusts the hilt of his sword for good measure, and checks himself before he can be more verbose.

“I'm here to study,” the vashoth says when Dorian doesn't ask him, as he adjusts the stack of books and papers under his arm. There's a monocle on a chain stuffed into the Orlesian's shirt pocket, and tiny spots of ink at the cuff. “A hunt, you say? What are you hunting?”

“Big game,” Dorian says. The Bull is going to have to work a little harder for his story than that.

“Oh. Would you like another drink?”

“I ain't finished this one yet.”

“Yes. Oh, of course. Yes.”

Dorian takes a drink from his tankard to stop himself smiling at the Bull's performance. In public, under the watch of many strangers in a bar, it's more imperative to hold to character, whereas they are both terrible at doing so during private bedroom games for too long.

Here, with so many eyes on them – oh, it's a thrill.

“You angling for something, boy?”

He can see the way the word hits him, the heat of the thing, but the Bull turns it to slightly flustered as he fumbles with his books again, dropping them onto the bar in front of him and leaning his arm on them.

“I do find myself in need of a tracker. For, ah – big game. Very big.”

“Yeah? Well, I'm already on a job.”

“I could pay you. That is to say, I have a stipend from the institute, I am able to – I can pay you more than your current employer.”

“My face look dishonest to you, boy? Like I'd go back on a contract?”

“No, of course not, no.”

The fumbling librarian thing is old in the books he absolutely never borrowed from Cassandra, but it's working for Dorian when the Bull does it.

“I don't want your money.”

“Please, ser. I am in great need of an experienced hunter, it's imperative that I find someone able to help me. I'm looking for—” The Bull slides in closer, bending his great bulk towards Dorian and whispering, “ _a dragon._ ”

“Should've known someone else would come for her,” Dorian gripes, levelling a look at the Orlesian vashoth as he fights the silent thrill of their stories – their ridiculous stories – matching up so. The Bull shrinks back, hand hovering over whatever paltry dagger he's got under that baggy shirt. “She's my kill.”

“Yes, of course, I'm a researcher. You can hunt her all you like, I need someone to help me track her. If my information is correct, she's nesting a clutch of eggs. They would be incredibly valuable the research I'm involved in.”

“You want her distracted so you can rob her nest.”

“To put it so crassly, yes.”

“And you're offering coin, huh?”

“Yes, I–” The Bull fumbles in his pocket, monocle falling out and hanging from its chain as he unfolds a piece of paper, and hands it to Dorian.

The paper is blank. Dorian can improvise.

“Who exactly is financing this?”

“It doesn't matter. It's good money, no?”

“Sure, but you're asking me to take more risk. Go out of my way to not trample her nest, it's gonna be a challenge. They authorise you to sweeten the deal?”

“It's non negotiable,” the Bull says, looking put out.

“Then go back to your library, boy, this isn't the place for you.”

Dorian gets up to leave, draining his tankard.

“Wait,” the Bull says, puts his hand gingerly on Dorian's arm. “There are other ways I could make it worth your while.”

“Are there?”

And here, it is a little less like Cassandra's novels and a little more like the sort of thing Dorian hid under his mattress as a teenager.

“I have a room.”

Dorian looks the Bull up and down very deliberately. This Orlesian vashoth, a head of dark curls pulled back into a bun and looking so _earnest_ – the Bull has outdone himself.

“Alright, boy. Where's your room?”

*

They have an audience as they leave – a handful of people who have been eavesdropping on their conversation, including the bartender, who have no idea it's a game.

More than anything the Bull wants Dorian to reach out and take his hand as he climbs to stairs in front of him, but he doesn't. He doesn't say a word until they're in his room, and the Bull has set his books and papers down on a table.

“So,” Dorian drawls in his Free Marcher accent, “what is my help worth to you?”

“I, ah—” The Bull makes an attempt at the bumbling, nervous librarian he's trying to embody, but he can already feel his cock throbbing. He'll be touching Dorian again soon. It's been months, and soon...

“How much do you want my help?”

“I'll... anything. Anything you want. If you swear to help.”

“I'm not wasting my night. Down payment before I agree.”

“How do I know you won't just... take what you want and leave?”

“You don't.”

The Bull gulps for show. After all these years, they've moved on from needing to reiterate the watchword, but the pause is clear for what it is: if either of them needs out before they really start, here's the opportunity. Not the last, but the easiest.

“Okay.”

Dorian takes up the seat by the fire – plush but threadbare on the arms, a traditional orlesian fabric that's seen better days.

“On your knees then, boy.”

This nameless Marcher dragon hunter has no care for the Bull's knee, and the deliberate way Dorian doesn't look at it threatens to make him smile, or coo. Dorian's trying so hard to make this work, and of course he's going to do the same.

It's not the best cock-sucking he's ever given. Definitely not the best he's given for Dorian, but this isn't Dorian and he isn't the Bull and the Orlesian vashoth he's pretending to be isn't experienced and isn't eager.

Surprisingly hard to do it badly, though – Dorian's cock is familiar in his mouth, the weight of him, the taste of him, that all the Bull wants to do is take him into his throat and show him how much he's missed him.

Instead he lets his teeth get in the way and doesn't take him past his gag reflex. Plays up the gag a bit for good measure as Dorian says nothing – usually he'd be swearing or goading the Bull on by now. He doesn't even go for his horns, just grabs the worn arms of the chair and thrusts himself into the Bull's mouth as he gets close.

“You'll—” the accent slips for just a second, before Dorian can bring it back, “you'll swallow if you want my help, boy.”

So the Bull does when Dorian grabs him by the hair and thrusts, finishes in his mouth, and he swallows with an attempt at a reluctant groan, even though he's fucking missed the salty, slightly bitter taste of Dorian's come.

As he pulls away, his hair stays in Dorian's hand.

*

The Bull's wig slips from from his head and Dorian laughs breathlessly.

“Oh, Bull,” he murmurs, when his laughter has died, feels his chest tighten with longing. “Enough of this.”

He leans forward and takes the Bull's face into his hands and kisses him. The Bull melts into him, slides his hands up Dorian's thighs.

“Look at you, kadan,” he says, stroking at the red beard at Dorian's jaw. “You're amazing. It took me a while to be sure it was you under all that.”

“And how about you, amatus? That wig is terrible, it shouldn't have worked. But it _did_.”

They laugh, breathless and giddy in each other's space. Months apart and another hour of a game of strangers, and they're together again.

“But I'd see you now. Let me get a cloth.”

The Bull goes to sit on the edge of the bed as Dorian goes to the basin, and on his return with cloth and a steaming bowl of water the Bull has removed his boots and brace; Dorian takes it from him and sets it on the table out of harm's way.

“Which one of your boys did you get to make you up like this?” Dorian asks, as the Bull tips his head up for his ministrations with a damp cloth.

“I didn't.”

“I ought not be surprised, I supposed. How many times have I indulged you in making me up?”

The cloth comes away smeared with grey. Dorian probably shouldn't ponder exactly what it is.

“You could fill brick work in with this stuff.”

“Face like mine, that's not wrong.”

“I love your face,” Dorian says, with a great surge of affection. Each mark and scars that he reveals – and a few more wrinkles than the day they met – is precious to him.

Even free of makeup, the smooth shave is a rare look for the Bull. Dorian strokes his jaw, and the Bull leans into the contact.

“Now,” Dorian says, “please rid yourself of that poncy shirt at once.”

“You don't like it?”

“The frilly cuffs and neck, Bull, honestly. I despair of you sometimes.”

Chuckling, the Bull pulls the ridiculously large shirt off of himself. Who in Thedas makes shirts that big?

“How about you?” the Bull asks. Dorian begins to undress himself too – the leathers are more simple than he usually wears, and easily stripped. “I mean the face. This can't all be makeup.”

“Well, the beard is fake,” Dorian says. The glue holding it on sticks to his skin and pinches as he pulls it off, revealing his own clean-shaven face.

“The rest is a little enchantment.”

“A little.”

“Alright, a series of quite complex enchantments. Honestly, most magisters would give their right arm to be able to pull off a disguise like this.”

A necklace on a waxed cord sits beside his halved dragon tooth – a simple thing, with runes etched into it. He takes it off, and the Bull's eyes go wide as he sees the enchantment fade; Dorian's hair darkens back to black, his eyes fade from yellow to grey, the freckles disappear one by one. The Bull reaches up and brushes his thumb against Dorian's face, where his beauty mark has returned.

“Shit.”

“A neat trick. Rather labour intensive, creating it. My hair went a very awkward straw colour at one point. I looked like Cullen's more handsome, successful cousin.”

“All for one night, huh?”

“The enchantment might work for another use, a couple of hours before it starts to break down. You're worth the effort.”

“You're sweet. Come here.”

In no mood to tease, Dorian sits himself on the Bull's knee and wraps his arms around his neck. Their kisses are indulgent, a new experience with no stubble and no moustache both, a thing of need and edged with desperation that turns steadily, inevitably heated.

“So, this dragon hunter,” the Bull says.

“A dashing rogue.”

“Uh huh. What else would he of made poor little me do before he helped me?”

“Terribly, filthy things, I imagine.”

“How filthy?”

“Oh, enough to thoroughly corrupt an Orlesian virgin.”

“Hey, I never said I was a virgin. But if you're still in the mood for corruption...”

Dorian kisses him again, laughing against his mouth.

**"Ships that pass in the night, and speak each other in passing, only a signal shown, and a distant voice in the darkness." - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow**

 


End file.
